


Worth His Salt

by squire



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: A mix of canon bestiary and my own imagination, Creature Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Episode Fix-It: s01e06 Rare Species, Feelings Realisation, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, First Kiss, Friends With Benefits, Geralt tries to do better, Geralt will get there eventually, M/M, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, sexual content in later chapters, you can guess which one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24321937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: Yes, Jaskier was odd. But then, Geralt was odder, at least by human standards. Perhaps that was why they were able to tolerate each other for so many months.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 193
Kudos: 900





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for the geraskier ship. Melitele have mercy.

Geralt began noticing it some months into their acquaintance. Or possibly it had been years - it was hard to keep track of such things with the long winters separating them, and anything shorter than a decade was usually below Geralt’s perception threshold anyway. But eventually, he began noticing it. 

Jaskier’s oddities. Sure, everyone had their quirks. Geralt would be the last to call himself an expert about what passed for normal amongst humans. But Jaskier’s oddities were just… peculiar. Harmless, inconsequential, and probably not even noticeable if you didn’t know him well. Small, dismissable things, that kept piling on. 

Jaskier drank a lot. Not wine, or vodka - though that, too, on occasion. But aside from that, on any given day, he just gulped down water like a man who just crossed the Korath desert on foot. The bard claimed it was vital to keep his vocal chords moisturized and in top condition. Geralt just knew that he’d turn into a jiggly mass of water sloshing around in a vaguely human-shaped bag of skin if he drank that much. 

Speaking of skins, Jaskier never shared his waterskin. Never, ever. A wonderfully caring and sharing person otherwise, but touch his waterskin and earn yourself a dagger through the back of your hand. At least that was what Jaskier was radiating with his glare anytime someone merely mentioned the idea of distributing and sharing resources. 

“Why, Geralt, did you know such irresponsible behaviour is the fastest way to get lip sores?” he would say, his hand moving back to pat his travel bag almost unconsciously, as if to make sure the waterskin was safely tucked in there. “And where would my singing be then? My mouth is my livelihood, I have to be extremely cautious with it!” 

“Then you should take more care not to put your foot in it next time you’re talking to some noblewoman’s husband,” Geralt grumbled but knew that arguing it would bring nothing, just like pointing out that lip sores were the last on Jaskier’s mind when he was fooling around and stealing kisses of said noblewomen. Geralt had long ago learned not to question Jaskier’s double standards when it came to carnal pleasure. 

Speaking of pleasure, Jaskier was immensely fond of the coastal towns. Everytime some contract swerved Geralt’s Path towards one of those hubs of high hopes, fast money, grass-widows and orphanages full of sailors’ spawn, the bard would disappear to take long walks along the shore. 

Geralt didn’t understand it. The bard had crossed the Continent in every possible direction at least twice. He had seen wonders a mere commoner would never get to see, courtesy of his snuggling up with countesses and princesses. He had also seen horrors nobody ever deserved to see, courtesy of tagging along on Geralt’s adventures. And yet he wouldn’t stop raving about the coast, as if there was anything interesting about a dull horizontal line of grey-blue upon slightly different grey-blue and the smell of rotting seaweed. And he couldn’t even swim! Geralt was positive that he never saw the bard go in more than knee-deep into the surf. He definitely never bathed in the sea.

Speaking about baths, though…. Jaskier was inordinately obsessed with bathing salts. He wouldn’t hesitate to spend the last of his coin when he discovered a product he never tried before, and often he would make his own from the herbs he gathered along the road and the kitchen salt he somehow pilfered from the inns they stayed at. 

Geralt particularly remembered that bath Jaskier made him to take before the betrothal banquet in Cintra. The bard promised him to make it “special” and then proceeded to prance around and prattle nonsense up until he gingerly picked up a pinch -  _ a pinch _ \- of his precious bathing salt in his fingertips and threw it into the tub as if it was the grand finale of some magical production. As if he had given Geralt a royal benediction, while that pitiful amount of salt dissolved in the rapidly cooling water. 

The bard was acting strange that evening, all lingering touches, soft words, and a strange sort of longing in his eyes that Geralt wasn’t sure was directed at him, or at the bath. 

Speaking about salt, though… Geralt made the mistake of leaving Jaskier in charge of the pot of stew cooking over the campfire once. Exactly once. The result was so over seasoned it was almost inedible. With the emphasis on ‘almost’ - it would take more than a heavy handed cook to keep a hungry witcher from food. Jaskier, for his part, refused to admit his mistake and demonstratively ate his portion down to the last drop, with relish so profound Geralt was sure it was faked. 

But it was true that for such a sweet-talking man, Jaskier had a lot of salty cravings. He preferred ham over roast, pirozhki over scones, and once Geralt caught him sprinkling salt over the caramel on his tart. 

“It brings out the taste,” Jaskier had argued, when Geralt didn’t get it. 

“Isn’t the point of melted sugar to be sweet?”

“I don’t like sweet things,” Jaskier had shrugged, “that’s why I follow  _ you _ around.”

Geralt only blinked, pretending the bite of tart in his mouth didn’t almost go down the wrong pipe. Did Jaskier just say that he-

But then Jaskier laughed and elbowed Geralt in the ribs, and the cough stuck in his throat could be safely blamed on that. 

“Your face!” Jaskier giggled. “Come on, Geralt, what’s a little banter between friends?”

“We’re not-”

“Sure,” Jaskier rolled his eyes, “the sun rises in the east, we’re not friends, just the laws of nature. Keep telling yourself that, dear witcher. You’re lucky this tart is so good, otherwise your gloominess would surely make me cry.”

Which brought Geralt’s thought process, in that roundabout way his mental cataloguing usually went, to the last of Jaskier’s peculiarities: he never actually cried. 

Don’t get him wrong: he complained, whined, threw tantrums, raved, moaned and vocalised his discontent in every way known to human ear, but Geralt had yet to see him weep. When his countess dumped him yet again, he’d written a song about his heartbreak that had the taverns in tears for weeks, but his own voice didn’t break on the lyrics. Even that one time with the djinn (and Geralt would very much like to forget about that), when the bard was coughing up his own blood, his eyes remained dry. 

So yes, Jaskier was odd. But then, Geralt was odder, at least by human standards. Perhaps that was why they were able to tolerate each other for so many months. 

*

“Jaskier? Is that you? Stars above, it really is!” 

The man was on them as soon as they ordered their meal, sliding onto the bench opposite them and reaching across the table to lightly punch Jaskier’s shoulder. He looked perhaps several years older than Jaskier but had the same eager, soft face, the same mop of rich hair, only lighter brown. Hazel eyes, wide and sparkling with enthusiasm. He carried a flute. Internally, Geralt groaned. 

Jaskier, on the other hand, looked like a deer hit by lightning. Completely frozen. 

“Come on, little tiddler! I know it’s been years-”

“Marco?” With a twitch of his muscles, which Geralt only felt because they were sitting so close, Jaskier finally found his words. “I didn’t know you’ve taken to… to the road.”

The man called Marco leaned back and grinned. 

“You know how boring it gets down there...” 

Jaskier blinked several times, very fast, and then as if with a spell broke, the usual cheerful and smooth-mannered bard was back. 

“Geralt, this is Marco. We studied together at Oxenfurt. Marco, this is Geralt of Rivia.” 

The man seemed to focus on him properly for the first time, taking in the white hair, the medallion, the two swords. Hazel eyes met his golden stare, unafraid but wary.

“Of course,” he said slowly, “I should have known. The songs,” and he smiled again, but this time, his bubble visibly deflated. 

“Yeah, the songs,” Jaskier echoed weakly. Geralt subtly sniffed the air. The man didn’t reek of nerves, which would give away a foul play. The medallion stayed silent against Geralt’s chest. Whatever problem Jaskier seemed to have with this man, he could deal with it alone. 

Before Marco could pick up the conversation thread in this weirdly tense reunion, the maid arrived at their table with three bowls of porridge. Jaskier must have welcomed this interruption because he wasted no time digging in - and immediately, he pulled a face. 

“Ugh. It’s missing salt.”

“Don’t like, don’t eat,” the maid scowled and marched away. 

Geralt shrugged. Warm food was better than no food at all. And it wasn’t so bad - although Jaskier was already pulling out the travel pouch of salt he always carried somewhere in his many pockets. Well, since it was already out in the open, Geralt suited himself and grabbed a pinch as well. They usually shared food on the road, it wasn’t anything unusual.

Opposite them, the flautist Marco watched the exchange with narrowed eyes. Next to Geralt, Jaskier flushed and Geralt could see the muscles in his throat working, but he said nothing. 

Or perhaps it was unusual, to share one’s things with a witcher, Geralt realised. With Jaskier around, he would often forget how outcast he was.

“I’ll get us some ale,” he said and got up. He could see Marco steeling himself up to say something to Jaskier, and he didn’t want to listen on the lecture about better choosing one’s friends. Besides, they weren’t friends anyway. 

But even though he didn’t want to listen, his witcher hearing and the short distance to the bar made sure he heard everything.

“So.” Marco sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re travelling with a witcher?”

“Yeah.” Jaskier sounded almost… apologetic. 

Who was this Marco? A student friend - bollocks. Could it be an older brother? A cousin? A… past lover? It irked Geralt that he couldn’t keep the questions out of his head. This wasn’t like him, this… curiosity.

“A witcher,” Marco repeated. Geralt kept his back turned, waiting for the ale. He knew what people thought of him. It didn’t bother him. It was fine. As long as Jaskier didn’t...

“Consider this, Marco. The witcher is travelling with  _ me _ .”

“True.” 

The twin chuckle had an uncanny familiarity to it. Definitely family, Geralt concluded, or at least childhood friends. But this man didn’t look like a noble. How did he call Jaskier? ‘Little tiddler?’ That was something a fisherman would say. Come to think of it, Marco did smell faintly of fish. Probably what he used to do before he ‘took to the road’, as Jaskier described the travelling bard occupation. That smell took forever to get out of clothes and boots. 

And the tension had all but disappeared from Jaskier’s voice by now, so most likely that man wasn’t a threat. 

“But Jask...” and Marco’s voice dropped lower, becoming serious again, “is he worth your salt?”

Geralt bristled. Doubting his morality, fine, he was used to it. But doubting his skills as a witcher? Of course he was fucking worth his salt! He almost turned around, half the mind to tell Marco where exactly he could shove it, but from the corner of his eye he caught Jaskier glancing at him - with a smile so gentle and lit up from within that Geralt had to blink away and pretend he saw nothing. 

“Yeah. Yes, he is.”

Marco didn’t comment on Jaskier’s life choices again after that, and Geralt came back to the table with three tankards of ale. 

It was only later that night, when Marco and his flute departed for another village, when Geralt remembered the odd phrasing of that last question.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, I guess Barefield was not so bad after all,” Jaskier said, surveying the pile of debris and two rotten logs - all that remained from the bridge over Braa after a sudden spring flood. 

“We’re not heading back,” Geralt grumbled, hefting up the saddle packs to rest atop of Roach’s back. “The water goes barely up to the chest here, we’ll be fine crossing on foot.”

“You’ll be fine,” Jaskier retorted, “I’m sure I’d be finer safely up there on the lovely-”

“Don’t even think about it,” Geralt cut him off. “Roach will have enough to carry against the current as it is.”

“And I won’t?” Jaskier whined but Geralt paid him no mind. He fastened the bard’s lute on top of the saddle - he wasn’t a complete jerk after all - and then waded into the stream, Roach’s bridle in hand. 

It occurred to him to look back in the middle of the river to find that Jaskier was still on the riverbank, trousers and boots stuffed into his pack and currently pulling his shirt over his head. 

“Jaskier.”

“What?” The bard’s miffed face emerged from the bundled up fabric. “I’d catch cold walking in soaked clothes, thank you very much.” Placing the bundle of his clothes and all the rest of his belongings atop of his head and securing it there with one hand, he reluctantly waded into the water as well. 

Geralt snorted and forged on. The water was icy cold, freezing his balls off, and the stream was calm but deceptively strong. What bothered him more than the cold though was the constant torrent of yelps and complaints coming from behind him. 

“Ouch, that’s bloody cold, oh Melitele’s sweet tits that’s so cold that even those tits couldn’t warm me up now. Fuck - ow - did I just step on a dead fish - urgh, these stones are fucking slippery, Geralt wait, I’d really appreciate a hand here, I can’t - I’m going to - Ger-!!”

With an internal sigh, Geralt was already reaching back before the bard’s desperate cry was cut off short by a mighty splash. Jaskier was clumsy even on land, his feet suited more to prancing around courtly ballrooms than to stumbling over rough terrain, so it was clear he would need help. But Geralt would first let him get properly dunked, just to teach him a lesson. 

When he pulled the flailing bard by the mop of his hair above the water surface, he earned himself a smack of wet cloth in the face and outraged spitting. “What the fuck, Geralt! I can’t swim!”

“Then be more careful,” Geralt said with a good-natured grin, marching up the other bank and dragging the more-or-less compliant weight of Jaskier behind him. 

Jaskier only coughed and spat more. “My - my clothes!” he wailed when he finally caught his breath. “Look at them! They’re ruined!”

“They’ll dry out,” Geralt pointed out the sun high in the sky and the warm breeze, unusual for this time of year. He pulled Jaskier onto the grassy river bank and the bard curled into a dripping, miserable puddle. 

“I’ll be smelling like dead fish for weeks,” he lamented. “If I catch cold from this, I’ll sneeze in your soup…” and true to his word, he sneezed. He started pulling on his soaked doublet and then he swore. 

“Fuck.” He patted one pocket. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He quickly went through the rest and then he made an aborted motion for the river - and Geralt would throttle him if he jumped back in! - before he flopped down on his butt, staring resignedly at the swift current. It was hard to guess with him still shivering from the cold, but he looked very, very pale. His face bore such a genuine despair as if it was his precious lute that just got swept away, and not just some of the many knick knacks he used to keep in his pockets. 

“Geralt,” he said eventually, “did you use all the ingredients when you were making the potion before the basilisk hunt back in Barefield?”

Geralt was wringing the excess water out of his trouser legs and he stopped, frowning. 

“Yes. Why? I won’t be needing that one in a while, there are no reports of basilisks in Hengfors.”

“Ah, I feared that might be the case.” Jaskier stood and attempted to wipe mud and wet grass of his clothes that stuck to him like hair to a wet rat. “Just that I let you take some of my salt to make it, and now I lost the rest.”

So that was it. Just the bard’s fine palate at the jeopardy. Geralt poured the last of river water out of his boots and handed the bard his lute case. 

“Then you’ll just eat bread in the next couple of days. The more meat for me.”

“Days?” Jaskier squeaked. “Geralt, how far is the City of Hengfors, actually?”

Geralt looked at the sun. “Three days, give or take.” He mounted Roach and chuckled to himself. “Four, if you keep on talking instead of walking.”

*

For once, Jaskier seemed to have taken Geralt’s joking comment to his heart, because he walked rather swiftly ahead until the nightfall. Even Roach had to hurry up a little to match his pace and Geralt returned the sideways glance she threw at him with a shrug. The bard probably believed that if he walked faster, his clothes would dry up sooner. 

The afternoon was hot, the weather taking mercy on them at least after that frigid bath, and Geralt was glad when he found a small sheltered clearing at the foot of a hill, with a clear spring burbling nearby. He filled a cup and brought it to the fire. Jaskier was sitting there, legs stretched towards the heat, little wisps of steam rising from the still wet leather, and stared at the flames with an uncharacteristically gloomy expression. Geralt handed him the sweet cool water, a little apology for the river. 

“Drink. You barely drank anything all afternoon.”

Jaskier looked at it with surprised eyes. And then sniffed. 

“Thank you, Geralt, but I don’t think I could keep it down.” He winced apologetically. “I, ah, feel like half of the Braa river is still rolling around in my stomach.”

Geralt frowned. Had Jaskier really swallowed enough of that muddy river water to make himself sick? “The more you should drink this,” he pushed the cup into his hand. 

“That’s… really thoughtful of you, dear witcher,” Jaskier murmured and drank it in a few fast gulps. His throat was working as if swallowing was causing him pain. Maybe he really caught a little cold. It would explain why he was quieter than usual. 

Geralt set his bedroll closer to Jaskier’s that night, close enough to keep track of his slow breathing and occasional light snores through his own dozing. He wanted to be on guard in case Jaskier started throwing up later in the night, or breathing wetly. He knew that sometimes, half-drowned people escaped their death only to drown quietly in their bed a couple of hours later. But the night was uneventful, and Jaskier slept between the twin warmth of the dying fire and the witcher’s body at his back. 

*

The morning, though, caught the bard in his usual cranky mood. He straight up scowled at the hot herbal tea Geralt made for them and walked to the spring instead, bringing his water skin that’s been empty since the basilisk kill. Geralt saw him collecting a little of the freshwater into it and swirling it around to rinse it. But then, instead of emptying it on the ground and refilling it again, Jaskier drank it straight away. 

At least his disgusted face matched Geralt’s own. The bard was simply useless in the wild. 

Through the day, Jaskier had slowed down a bit from his yesterday’s murderous pace. He strummed on his lute for a while as they walked, humming a song Geralt recognised as some sailor ballad. But he kept losing the thread of the lyrics and starting again, and after two hours of increasing frustration he slung the lute over his shoulder and rubbed his temples with both hands. 

“Killer of a headache, this one.”

The sun was beating down on them again, the air shimmering with heat. Geralt nodded to a shaded spot by the road. “We can take a break.”

Jaskier fidgeted. “I’d rather keep going if it’s the same to you.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt sighed. The bard got it into his head sometimes to try and prove he was a worthy travel companion, and it usually ended with more woe than if he hadn’t. 

“But Geralt, I can almost  _ hear _ the siren call of the civilisation, and the bustling markets, and the merry taverns, and the lovely pints of ale-”

“Rest,” Geralt grunted. It’s true that if they kept this pace, they could reach the city tomorrow already, and just because he could sleep on the forest floor didn’t mean he would choose it over a proper bed. But he had responsibility towards the man who insisted to trudge along with him, a responsibility he never wanted but strangely didn’t mind to bear, and they wouldn’t be reaching any city if Jaskier ran himself to the ground first. So rest it was. 

Jaskier pulled an honest-to-gods pout but sat down onto a moss-covered tree trunk without further protests, stretching his long legs in front of him and bending down to rub at his calves. They must have been cramping from the exertion. Geralt had rarely seen the bard covering such distance in barely two days. Never, actually. If Jaskier was trying to be good, perhaps Geralt could try to be good to him, too.

He thrummed his fingers lightly on the lute slung over Jaskier’s back. “Play us something,” he said. 

He expected surprise - during their travels, he’d requested the bard’s song about as often as it snowed in summer, and he knew Jaskier never wasted an opportunity to play to an audience. He also knew that it was a constant sore sting in the bard’s pride, that the one person his songs were all about didn’t appreciate them enough. 

But instead of gratitude, the bard grumbled. “We’re wasting time.” But he reached for the lute anyway. Geralt smiled to himself at his poor attempt to act hard to get and stretched himself on his back in the soft grass, arms folded under his head, to enjoy the music. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jaskier flexing his fingers several times before grasping the lute’s neck, adjusting the position of his fingers on the strings. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the first gentle tones-

_ Thwank! _

His eyes snapped open to meet Jaskier’s equally baffled stare. A broken string was curling away of the lute, still vibrating with the force it was torn with. Jaskier’s gaze dropped to his right hand, clenched in a white-knuckled fist. It shook, clearly taken hostage by some involuntary spasm or cramp, and Jaskier quickly hid it under his thigh. The embarrassment and - guilt? No, Geralt wasn’t imagining that one - on his face morphed into anger. 

“Sorry, Geralt, I’m not in the mood.” He ignored the faulty string and started packing the lute away. 

“Jaskier.”

“Let’s go,” Jaskier said resolutely and rose to his feet. And Geralt definitely wasn’t imagining the wince Jaskier tried to hide as he put weight back on his feet. But if the bard wanted to be stubborn… Geralt sighed internally and grabbed Roach’s bridle to follow. 

That night, Jaskier curled on his bedroll as soon as they made camp, ignoring Geralt’s offer of rabbit spit-roasted over the campfire. Geralt thought that after some rest, the bard’s grumbling stomach would prevail, but he was wrong. Jaskier seemed to have fallen asleep as he was, hungry and unwashed, but even his sleep didn’t look right. He trembled slightly, as if he was cold, and his skin looked pale even in the warm light of the fire. 

Geralt fed a couple more twigs to the fire, making the flames rise and heat spread where the bard slept, but Jaskier barely stirred - only enough to pull away from the heat, shifting in his half-conscious state and breathing shallowly through his dry, chapped lips. 

Fuck. Geralt pressed the back of his hand against Jaskier’s forehead. He couldn’t be sure - his knowledge on human illnesses was basically nonexistent - but it seemed as if Jaskier was burning up with fever.

Geralt felt a drop of sweat slide down his temple. The heat of the overly roaring fire, definitely. Not the worry about the man who knew what he was getting into when he started following Geralt around. 

He grabbed his waterskin and nudged it against Jaskier’s lips. “Jaskier. Drink.”

Dazedly, Jaskier lifted his head just enough to swallow a mouthful - and immediately he gagged. 

“Hurts,” he whispered when he stopped coughing. 

“You’ll be alright,” Geralt said, not even knowing who he was trying to soothe more. 

Jaskier blinked up at him. His eyes were red around the corners. “I’ve caught my death in that river,” he mumbled. 

“Nonsense. All you’ve caught is a little cold.”

But Jaskier was already asleep again, in a strange stupor that looked more like unconsciousness than a resting, healing sleep. 

Geralt cursed silently. He fed and stoked the fire again and laid himself down curled around the bard, one arm thrown protectively over him. His large hand came to rest over that fragile ribcage, feeling the bird-like thrumming of the heart beneath just in case his witcher hearing should fail him. 

The morning couldn’t have come fast enough. 


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt woke from an uneasy doze with a start. Around him, the woods were still dark, but the pale light in the east signalled fast approaching dawn. Under his palm, Jaskier’s chest was rising and falling with molasses-slow breaths. His fever must have broken because his skin was cool now, not clammy but probably colder than a human's should be. It was difficult to tell, Geralt didn’t have much tactile experience with humans. He tried to remember what he knew about human maladies, could’ve it been heat stroke? Jaskier had to be dehydrated, he wasn’t even sweating. 

Geralt, on the other hand, felt like crusted over with dried sweat. He’d been keeping the fire up all night, driven by vague memory that sick humans shouldn’t be left in the cold, and between that and the unusually hot night, his shirt was basically soaked. 

In his arms, Jaskier stirred, nose scrunching and flaring out. It looked a bit as if his nose woke up before the rest of him. “Hmmm… smells nice...”

Geralt instinctively pulled away from Jaskier who seemed intent to rub his face all over his neck without even being properly awake to know what he was doing. The bard’s body followed after him like sticky honey, grabbing two fistfuls of his shirt and burying his face into the hollow of Geralt’s throat. 

“Jaskier.” Geralt was at a loss. He would be lying to himself denying that Jaskier’s sudden clinginess was doing  _ things _ to him, stirring up a surge of fondness and protectiveness within him and also stirring up something much more solid in his trousers. But Jaskier was basically still asleep, it wasn’t  _ right _ \- “Jaskier. Let go. I smell.”

“You smell  _ amazing _ ,” Jaskier mumbled sleepily, his breath tickling over Geralt’s pulsepoint, and then there were his lips, travelling up, up and over the edge of his jaw, a trail of little kitten kisses going straight for Geralt’s lips, and Geralt couldn’t suppress the groan if he tried-

Blue eyes shot open to meet his. They looked somewhat clearer than last night. And right now, they were wide with shock - but underneath that, there was a gleam of hunger. 

“Oh,” Jaskier breathed. “Why hadn’t I thought of  _ that... _ ” and he muffled the rest of whatever discovery he just had against Geralt’s lips, kissing him like his life depended on it.  _ Why hadn’t he thought of that indeed _ , Geralt thought with an exasperated fondness as he let his mouth fall open, his tongue meeting Jaskier’s with equal enthusiasm. Why did he have first to get sick in a river and make Geralt worried to finally realise that this is what they should have been doing ages ago. 

And then Jaskier rolled them over with force Geralt didn’t think he had in him, especially not considering the state he’d been in just yesterday, and climbed on him, planting his elbows on either side of Geralt’s head and framing his face in his palms. 

“I... care about you,” he said, voice trembling. There was a strange urgency in his eyes, in his voice, a sort of painful desperation, as if it physically hurt him to hold back. “I need you to know, that whatever happens, I care about  _ you. _ ” 

Geralt didn’t understand, what should happen? - but he didn’t get to ask because Jaskier kissed him again, feverishly, his tongue darting out to lick across Geralt’s upper lip. He was humming deep in his throat, as if Geralt tasted divine and not the filthy, smelly git he was, and Geralt couldn’t get enough of how delightfully  _ filthy _ his bard was. How he wasted no time in rucking up his shirt and kissing his way down Geralt’s chest and stomach, biting and licking every inch of skin as if Geralt was something delicious he wanted to devour while his fingers scrambled and tore at the fastenings of his trousers. 

And oh, for someone who claimed he needed to be careful with his mouth, Jaskier certainly wasn’t afraid of a challenge. He sucked Geralt’s cock as if he couldn’t get enough of it, as if he’d spent decades waiting for it, and fuck - all those adventures in married women’s beds must have taught Jaskier some wicked tricks with his tongue. His mouth was so hot, the suction so perfectly tight and greedy, and all too soon, Geralt was arching his back and spending himself down Jaskier’s throat. He flopped down and stared up through the tree tops at the dawning sky. Barely quarter of an hour passed since they woke up.

Geralt would be embarrassed for not living up to whatever expectations about his stamina Jaskier might have had, but he forgot all about it when he looked down and met Jaskier’s shining eyes. The bard’s hair was sticking up in whichever direction, his cheeks were flushed bright and he was grinning with such unabashed joy that Geralt couldn’t help but to return the smile. A drop of come escaped the corner of his mouth and Geralt lifted his hand to wipe it off with his thumb, but Jaskier leaned back and Geralt watched that clever tongue dart out to catch it. It shouldn’t have looked as damn sexy as it did. 

“Come here,” Geralt rumbled, looking forward to returning the favour, but Jaskier was already springing to his feet. 

“Up, up, my dear witcher! We need to go!” 

Geralt reached for him but Jaskier was faster, all but flitting around like a hummingbird. He sighed, sat up and fixed his trousers. A frown was tugging at his brows, the contentment from earlier slowly evaporating. 

“What about you? Don’t you want...”

“Don’t I want your mouth?” Jaskier finished for him, kneeling down to tug at the bedroll. Obediently, Geralt shifted away so he could roll it up. “Oh Geralt, you have  _ no idea  _ how much I want  _ everything _ . But I’d like to save it for a proper bed with a nice mattress. So up with you, you don’t want to leave a man waiting!”

Well, when Jaskier put it like that… And it was nice to see him back to his healthy self. Whatever cold he caught in the river, Geralt had clearly done something right to cure him of it. 

“Fine,” Geralt said. “If we set out now, we’ll be in the city come afternoon.” 

*

The relief, sadly, lasted only a while. After couple of hours, Jaskier started visibly lagging behind again. The red, twitchy look in his eyes was back, and he walked with his lips pressed tight together. Geralt could almost hear his teeth grinding. 

He did what he rarely allowed and helped Jaskier to get into Roach’s saddle. That helped a little, Jaskier even cracked a few jokes, but soon he was too ill to do anything more than staring into the distance with glazed over eyes. 

Geralt contemplated mounting up behind him, make a dash for the city and make it up to Roach later, when he became aware of stomping, clatter and chatter coming down the side road to join the main one they were following. They rounded a bend and there it was, a horse-drawn hayrack with a whole family on it, sitting on a pile of what seemed like all their worldly belongings. 

“Hey there!” The eldest man of the family called, pulling at the reins. “Your friend doesn’t look very good, mister!”

Geralt spread his arms just in time for Jaskier to fall into them, sliding helplessly down the saddle in his near catatonic state. “Geralt, I think I need a nap,” he whispered as his head lolled against the witcher’s shoulder. 

“We need help,” Geralt called out. “Do you know about a healer?”

“Aren’t you a witcher?” the farmer countered. From behind him, his family was peeking out with a variety of glances, from scared to downright curious. 

“Please,” Geralt huffed. “Is there a healer nearby?”

“Nobody of that kind up until the city,” the elder shook his head, and then his expression softened. “Load him up into the back of the cart. We’re heading that way.”

The farmer’s son helped him to get Jaskier comfortable on a pile of blankets, amongst all the farming tools, pots and pans, jars of pickles and bags of dried herbs, and Geralt rode Roach in the front to thank the head of the family. 

“I wish you’d come by last month,” the old man dismissed his thanks. “A wild beast had settled in the caves on the other side of that hill,” he pointed in the direction from where they came. “Ate some of my sheep.”

“What kind of beast?” Geralt inquired. 

“Blast me if I dared to come close enough to look,” the old farmer snorted. “No mister, I’m not idling around to see when it runs out of my sheep and starts on my grandchildren. I sold that miserable piece of land and am moving closer to the city. My sister’s husband, gods may rest his soul, recently passed away, and seeing as they had no children, she will let us settle with her.”

“I need to make sure the bard is alright,” Geralt said, “but then I will talk to the mayor about killing the beast that troubles you.”

The family seemed less wary of him when they saw how he fussed over his human companion, and since he gained somewhat of an approval of their patriarch, soon they all but hung on his lips, asking question after question about his adventures. Geralt suppressed the urge to gnash his teeth and humoured them - it was their cart Jaskier was sleeping in, and their kindness keeping him comfortable, after all. 

“And what about the fight with the elves?” the smallest boy asked. “Was it like in the song?”

Geralt snorted.  _ That _ one always came back to bite him in the ass. 

“Nothing like in the song. A lot more teeth kicking. Much less heroism.”

“I beg your pardon,” came an indignant voice from behind, “if anything, the song fails to do the heroism proper justice!”

Geralt whipped around in his saddle to see Jaskier lounging comfortably amongst the family’s goosefeather pillows, with a much healthier colour in his face. He kept licking his lips as if he just ate something - Geralt’s eyes narrowed and he subtly inhaled - indeed, the lid on the pot with salted meat wasn’t fastened the way it was before. That minx! One moment he’s almost fainting, but as soon as he’s better, all he thinks about is to satisfy his palate! The bard’s finicky tongue was going to get him in trouble if the family ever found out. 

Jaskier’s previous remark might have been the first instance he ever used the word ‘fail’ in the same sentence as his songs, and Geralt laughed at that. Definitely not because of the sudden flood of relief that had almost made his heart beat faster for the first time in a century. 

“Jaskier! You look better.”

“Why, thank you, I feel much better as well, thanks to you lovely people! I told you, I just needed a nap.”

“You looked like death warmed over when we met you, master bard,” the farmer’s wife said. 

“Yeah, it’s horrible what almost drowning combined with a hell of a heat stroke does to a person! I told you, Geralt, bards are meant to cross river over bridges!”

Luckily for Geralt, Jaskier took over the chatter with the farmer’s family with all his renewed vigour, singing and playing his lute until their roads parted again. 

*

Once they arrived to the city, Jaskier made himself comfortable in an inn (“yes Geralt, there’s a very special something I have in mind for us, but for that, I need to bathe first,”) and Geralt headed to the mayor’s house to talk about the rumoured beast in the caves. It turned out to be a wyvern, according to several eyewitnesses, and Geralt was promised a hefty sum for its head.

On his way back, he passed through a marketplace. Amongst all the trinkets, one stall caught his eye - the leatherworker’s goods. Next to the scabbards, sturdy gloves, wrist guards and belts was displayed a small travel pouch for salt, made of waxed leather with a waterproof lid, beautifully decorated. Geralt remembered Jaskier’s dismay when he lost his pouch of salt in the river, and well, it kind of  _ was _ the witcher’s fault that he lost it, so…

Jaskier stared at the gift, the pouch full to the brim with salt Geralt made sure to buy too, with wide eyes and for once, utterly lost of words. He blushed up to his ears when he accepted it. That was odd - Geralt had got trinkets for him before, things the he thought Jaskier should have - like the dagger, and seriously, what was the bard thinking, travelling the Continent without a weapon - or things Jaskier genuinely needed, like the replacement strings for his lute when the bard was short on coin. But none of those gifts had ever elicited such reaction. 

Jaskier all but tackled him to the bed, not giving a single fuck about the fact that he was freshly clean and sweet smelling from his bath and Geralt was still crusted over with their journey’s filth. At least they were both equally dirty when they rolled out of bed two hours later. Jaskier somehow fitted himself into the bathtub with Geralt, the water reheated by the witcher’s magic, and with his head tipped back against Jaskier’s chest, the bard’s deft fingers massaging his scalp, Geralt finally felt content. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I keep bumping up the chapter count. I'm sorry. These two idiots are just taking over the story. I promise we'll get to the answer to all your questions in the next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Of course it couldn’t last. 

The Path brought along many things, but Geralt should have learned long ago that contentment wasn’t one of them. And if he were ever to feel content, let alone fucking  _ happy _ , then it was most likely a trick. A deception. A fucking  _ lie _ .

At least the liars didn’t get to live long enough to make him regret his mistake. 

It was better when it was someone he knew. He didn’t need false friends. Weeding them out was good for him in the long run. 

It was worse when it was someone he knew. 

It was the worst when the person with their neck caught between the tree trunk and the sharp edge of his blade was Jaskier. 

*

That wyvern was easy enough, if by easy you meant that its venomous tail only nicked Geralt once. And that was fine, or it was going to be, as soon as he got back to where he left Roach and Jaskier and all his potions and swallowed down the antidote.

He stumbled into the camp, tossed the blood-dripping scaled head to the ground and quickly searched through his bags. The antidote was a thick substance, like gritty asphalt, and with the poison in his system quickly closing off his throat he needed something to wash it down. He shook his waterskin - empty. The edges of his vision started to go grey. There was Jaskier’s waterskin… still heavy enough. Geralt almost heard Jaskier’s usual indignant shout - but the bard was currently perched high upon a tree, to get a vantage point to watch the battle unfold, and for once, in this case, he surely wouldn’t mind. 

Except Geralt barely managed to swallow down the antidote before he nearly threw it all back up. The water in the bard’s waterskin was so salty it stung. He must have dumped a whole pouch of salt into it, a fucking brine was sweeter than this.

Was it a prank? Did Jaskier set this up on purpose, somehow knowing that Geralt would trespass on the only protected territory amongst all of Jaskier’s belongings? No. Geralt had seen him taking a healthy swing from that waterskin just before he climbed the tree. 

The very tree from where Jaskier was hastily climbing down now, slipping and almost falling in his haste, shouting - 

“Geralt, don’t drink that! That’s not for you!”

The antidote worked, clearing his head, and the mutagenic potion he took earlier was still coursing through his system, enhancing his senses. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, tasting. Analysing. No human should be able to drink this and survive. Which meant...

It was the salt. Salt in Jaskier’s water, in his baths, pilfered in inns, lost in the river. Always the fucking salt. Funny how he only figured it out while he was still staring at the world with black eyes. Guess it took a monster to know a monster. The dots in his head connected during the three strides he took to the tree, just in time to catch Jaskier landing on wobbly legs and push him backwards, pinned between the rough bark and the gleaming edge of his silver sword. 

“What are you?” he snarled. Pressed the tiniest bit further, just to touch the skin. It didn't burn. Of course, silver never hurt Jaskier before. He’d spent hours last night with Geralt’s silver medallion pressed against his skin, snug between their chests-

No. He couldn't think about that. 

“What. Are. You?” Geralt repeated, flaring out his nose. The scent that hit him was unexpected. He would’ve understood fear. What he got was… resignation.

“I’m human,” Jaskier choked out. His body sagged in Geralt’s hold, eyes falling down. “I’m human now. I haven’t… always… been.”

He was telling the truth, Geralt could hear it in the thudding of his heart. Then Jaskier’s eyes lifted, and the sadness in them was so deep, so unarmed, that Geralt’s fury dulled a little. 

“Let me go? I promise I won’t hurt you.”

As if he could. As if anything shaped like a bard could hurt Geralt now when he was still white as death and with enough strength to snap in half the tree Jaskier leaned against, along with his body as well. 

But he did let go. Took a step back, sheathed his sword and watched Jaskier slide down the trunk into a boneless heap, wrapping his arms around his knees. 

“So, what did you use to be?”

Jaskier tipped his head back, his skull connecting with the bark with a tiny thud. His eyes were closed, eyebrows pinched. The gesture bared his throat. Further reassurance that Geralt could end this with a quick swipe of a blade if he wanted.

“A siren.”

Geralt tried to recall what he learned about them during his training. “Of course. Claws, wings, fishtail, putting on a pretty face and singing?”

Jaskier mustered a glare. “You’re thinking nixas. Fucking bastards, that, and only distant cousins. I had no wings, and this beautiful face is all mine.”

So much things suddenly made sense. But there were still some that didn’t add up. 

“You can’t even swim.”

“I can’t swim with fucking legs,” Jaskier whined, clearly peeved by this fact. “They’re good enough for walking but I just can’t get them… coordinated, in water. It was easier with the tail...”

Jaskier was well on his way to babbling, and he only did that when he felt threatened, so Geralt decided to sit down. He needed to hear the truth, the whole truth, as calmly as possible. 

“So what’s this?” he pointed his chin at Jaskier’s - decidedly human - body. “It’s not a glamour. My medallion would’ve told me.”

“Of course not. It’s… a bit like your mutagenic potion. You drink it to change your body for a few hours. Mine was just irreversible, once and for all. Of course, it has its flaws - I need to consume salt daily, and drinking freshwater hurts me, but otherwise it’s a perfectly human body. I got it from a sea witch.”

Something about this sounded familiar. A book of legends in the vast library in Kaer Morhen. Except this one wasn’t used to teaching. It was read in front of a fire when the burdens of the Path became too much. 

“I thought your kind had to trade their voice to get legs.”

“That’s correct,” Jaskier nodded, as if it didn’t just literally contradict himself just by using his damn voice. Then he looked at Geralt with narrowed eyes. 

“Excuse me, did you think this filling-less pie was my real voice? My true siren voice could shatter ship hulls and storm the sea! The witch knew damn well what she asked for.” He shuddered. “She was terrifying. Yennefer’s got nothing on her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Geralt growled. He was getting tired by Jaskier’s foolish derision of one of the most powerful sorceresses on the Continent. But speaking about Yennefer... 

“She must have noticed when she healed you from the djinn’s curse.”

Jaskier rubbed at his throat, as if the mere memory brought up a phantom pain. “Oh she did!” he chuckled, but it didn’t carry any mirth. “She tried her damnedest to counter the transformation to get one of my pretty scales for her magic. She couldn’t. I told you, she’s got nothing on Ursula.”

This was… unexpected. Geralt couldn’t put his finger on why it bothered him so much that Yennefer knew and he hadn’t.

“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

Jaskier shrugged. “She’s smart enough to pick her battles. She tried, it didn’t work, she dismissed it.”

“No,” Geralt shook his head, perturbed. “Why didn’t she tell  _ me _ ?”

Jaskier stared at him for a moment, and something like anger cracked through the dejected sadness he was shrouded in. 

“Maybe because she actually doesn’t give a fuck about you, my dear witcher?”

Hearing that so bluntly hurt - because deep down, Geralt knew that it was true. Yennefer liked him well enough, but not  _ enough _ . He only kept meeting her time and time again because of the djinn’s magic, not because she was missing him. But he was never going to acknowledge this, and so he did what he always did with pain - turned it around and used as a weapon. 

“Says the man who sucked me off just to get his daily dose of salt.”

It worked. The anger in Jaskier’s expression shattered, and all that remained was pure misery. 

“I told you I cared about  _ you _ … I understand that in retrospect it looks rather opportunistic. But trust me, Geralt, I’ve wanted to kiss you, suck you off, have you in any way you’d let me, since the bloody Posada. The salt I could get this way was just a benefit.” 

He sniffed, one corner of his mouth lifting in a feeble attempt at a joke. “Guess that makes us friends with benefits, as they like to call it in Cintra.”

“We are not friends.” The words were out of his mouth before he could really think about it, an automatic response to Jaskier’s friendship claims over the years - but then he paused. 

Because for the first time, Jaskier didn’t interrupt him. Didn’t argue. He just nodded, eyes downcast, all the fight gone out of him. “Right. Of course.”

That moment in the woods seemed so surreal now. Geralt thought it was a start of something new, something  _ good _ … and instead it was just a means to an end. 

At least Yennefer usually asked when she wanted her itch scratched. 

“You could have told me.”

Jaskier sighed. “Geralt, you kill monsters for a living. How would that go? Oh by the way, I’m a nearly extinct creature that got bored in deep sea and decided to befriend humans again?”

“Again?”

Jaskier rubbed at his calves. He did that a lot, Geralt noticed. Maybe talking about his past brought up memories of the tail. He wondered how many years Jaskier had lived as a siren, and how long his lifespan actually was. 

“We used to be friendly with humans,” Jaskier began, “early on. We used to help them navigate the wide seas. We were fascinated with them. Some of us still are - you’ve met Marco.” He waved his hand back. Yes, Geralt remembered Marco. 

“But then there was more and more of them. Encroaching on our territories, wiping out our fishing waters with their trawls. Hunting us for our scales, fins. For a while, we fought back. We became monsters.” He wrapped his arms around himself, disgust etched around his lips. 

“But humans were persistent. There was always more of them. Turn back one ship, ten more would come next month. We knew we wouldn’t survive. So we pulled back. We found deep dwellings, away from humans. Now you only find us in fairy tales.” 

He smiled softly. “You know, what you’ve told to Filavandrel on that very first adventure of ours, how it’s better to survive far from humans than to burn yourself down fighting them, it really struck a chord with me. I thought, if I could ever tell anyone the truth… you would be the one who would understand.”

The mutagen was slowly leaving Geralt’s system, his enhanced vision bleeding out, leaving behind colours of the real world that looked muted and dull in comparison. Everything seemed smaller, familiar, harmless. Especially Jaskier. 

“What’s even your name?”

The bard huffed. “It’s Jaskier.”

“So who’s Julian Pankratz, viscount de whatever?”

“Gods, you really want to hear the whole confession, do you?” Jaskier groaned. “And what then? Will you be the jury and the judge, too?”

But under Geralt’s glare, he wilted. “Fine. Julian was a young man that drowned at sea with his parents when their ship sank. Before you ask, no, I didn’t sink it. There was nothing I could do to save them, either. But there was a sealed box with credentials in the ship’s cabin, and a signet ring on the father’s hand. I knew an opportunity like that wouldn’t come twice. I took it on land after my transformation, contacted a solicitor, renounced the title to some of that poor boy’s distant cousin, cashed out a small trust fund, lost about a half of it in Gwent the first night, and was a travelling bard ever since.”

Fair enough. At least Jaskier hadn’t killed to get his identity. Geralt didn’t know if he would be able to forgive that.

He still didn’t know if there was even anything to forgive. 

He stood up, his tired muscles protesting now when they were back to less-than-monstrous proportions, and extended his hand to Jaskier. 

“We need to get back and cash out on the wyvern’s head.”

Jaskier took the hand and used it to pull himself up, but he wouldn’t meet his eyes. And for the first time since Geralt knew him, the bard wasn’t pestering him for details about the kill as they made their slow way back to the city. 

Geralt welcomed the silence as he had a lot to think on, and thinking was exhausting. His mind kept circling back to the memory of Jaskier wading in the shallows of the beach on their last visit to the coast, waves lapping at his ankles, singing to himself some wordless tune. Knowing that he couldn’t swim, couldn’t breathe underwater, that his human skin offered no protection against the freezing cold of deep sea anymore. How much of yearning he must have felt, and if it was in any way similar to the thoughts the witcher forbade himself thinking too often, about how would it be like to feel, to be weak, to be human. 

“Is it reversible?” he asked at last, when the silence became too haunting. 

“The transformation?” Jaskier asked, hesitating. “For a witcher, you’re remarkably uneducated in the legends about my kind.”

Geralt’s eyes narrowed. He knew the legend well. It was his favourite book. 

“So that one is true, too?”

“There’s a grain of salt - and forgive me the pun - in every myth, Geralt. Yes, I would need to trade the heart of the person I love to get my tail back.”

Geralt only realised he’d stopped in his tracks when Roach bumped him into the back of his neck with her nose. He had a sudden vision of Jaskier leaning above his sleeping form to give him one last kiss, before he took a knife and carved his heart out of his chest- 

It must have played out on his face because when he came to, Jaskiers eyes were clouded over with hurt, his expression closed off, lips stretched into a fake cheery smile. 

“Don’t worry, my dear witcher. You’re safe. We’re not even friends, remember?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest apologies for the Andersen references. I just couldn't resist.


	5. Chapter 5

They patched up, eventually, because of course they did. Or at least, Geralt thought they did. 

But something wasn’t the same. Small, inconsequential things, just like Jaskier’s non-human quirks, but while Geralt was fine ignoring them before, now they kept screaming in his face. 

He, for one, no longer helped himself to Jaskier’s salt pouch when the tavern’s food was less than appetizing. He couldn’t, not when he knew what salt meant to the bard. He couldn’t shake off the memory of Jaskier almost dying in his arms while Geralt thought it was just a little cold. Because he thought Jaskier was human. 

Jaskier tried to offer the first time, stating there was plenty for both and he didn’t mind to share, but Geralt also remembered that evening they met Marco. Sharing one’s salt was apparently a big deal for their kind. Geralt didn’t need anyone, and couldn’t afford anyone needing him. And the last thing Geralt needed was a siren thinking he was worth his salt.

So he shut it down, and Jaskier didn’t offer again. 

In turn, Jaskier switched to storing his salt in a plain, sturdy and unassuming pouch, leaving the fancy one Geralt got him untouched. “It’s too pretty to wear it down on the road,” he waved it off with a smile, and that was it. 

Soon the were back on the road, and everything was back to the same, except nothing was the same - and they they ran into an old knight who invited them on a dragon hunt.

And on the hunt, they met Yennefer again. 

At first, Geralt was glad for the reprieve. Sleeping with Yennefer was pure pleasure without having to worry about the fragility and safety of the person in his arms. He knew he was being used by her in turn, but he knew that upfront, and he also knew Yen from inside out, and all about her nature. There would be no surprises from her, no secrets. 

In the camp on the mountain, just before the last stretch of the journey, Jaskier came to sit with him. Voice timid and eyes soft, he asked Geralt to go to the coast with him, once again. Somehow, Geralt knew that if he turned it down, Jaskier would go all the same, with or without him, and that would be the end of them without either of them saying it outright. 

He didn’t say anything and went to spend the night with Yen. Giving her what she wanted was easier than thinking about what did he want. 

But then the next day came, and everything blew up in his face.

He always knew she would leave him. He just didn’t think she would  _ want _ to. He knew he would lose her, and didn’t realise she never was his in the first place. 

Just like Jaskier, she turned out to be just an empty wish. 

So when the sound of her angry footsteps faded in his ears, drowned out by the boiling of his own hurt, and Jaskier opened his damn mouth to say some fucking platitude-

He lashed all the hurt at the one person who caused his confusion in the first place. 

*

By the time Geralt cooled off enough to tolerate Jaskier’s trademark chatter, the bard was nowhere to be seen. 

That wasn't so odd in itself. The songbird came and went as it pleased him. Except, he never left when Geralt wanted him to. 

_ This is where we part ways. - Sure!  _

_ That creature is dangerous. - Oh, really?  _

Jaskier could whine, complain, bargain and blackmail as he liked and Geralt was to patiently endure it, but he would huff off like a sullen child the one time Geralt lost his temper and asked for a bit of peace? 

Well. Peace he's got. 

Such blessed, such profound peace and quiet that nothing could distract him from replaying the words inside of his head. 

_ If life could give me one blessing... _

Fine. Maybe he asked for more than just peace. Maybe what he actually asked for was… 

... _ it would be to take YOU off my hands! _

Fuck. 

*

He tracked the scent of waxed wood and chamomile salt down the mountainside, laid over with the earthy scent of dwarves, leather oil and dirt. So Jaskier had enough wits around him not to attempt the trip back down on his own. They didn’t dally in the camp at the cliff, leaving it for Geralt to clear up and pack, but even with the head start the scent fainted faster than Geralt expected. 

He felt his heart clench when he found the pretty little satchel of salt tucked into Roach’s saddlebag. It was full to the brim, and if Jaskier gave him a slap in the face - that is, if the slap actually found its mark through witcher reflexes - Geralt would feel less humiliated by that than by this discovery. Because now he knew what the gift meant to a siren. 

It was a token of cherishment and protection. Basically a courting gift. And Geralt had no fucking clue. Leave it to his oblivious self to accidentally become betrothed to a creature. 

By the time night fell and shrouded the path in darkness too uncomfortable even for witcher eyesight, Jaskier and the dwarves were still well ahead of him. He could see their campfire a couple miles below, a timid light flickering through the tree trunks lining the base of the mountain. Geralt spread his bedroll under the partial shelter of an overhanging boulder and fell asleep to the hissing of wind and that pinpoint of orange light at the back of his eyelids. 

The night wasn’t kind to him. Most of the time he spent jolting between annoying dreams and persistent thoughts chasing their tails around his head. He knew Yennefer would forgive him eventually, her long lifespan and almost infinite power giving her the aloofness that defied the very point of holding grudges. In the end, Geralt was nothing but a distraction to her. His Child Surprise - she was safe and loved, for now, and she didn’t even know Geralt, so she wouldn’t miss him for a little longer. They were destined to be together eventually, but right now he wasn’t even an afterthought in her life. But Jaskier… he had invested far too much of his life into this failure of a friendship to forgive Geralt just out of boredom, and he wouldn’t forgive him unconditionally the way a child would. A creature following around a monsterslayer. Such a situation shouldn’t even exist, and yet, there they were…. until they weren’t. 

He got up before dawn, determined to catch up with them before Jaskier would even roll out of his blankets. A sleepy combination of scruffy and soft, morning Jaskier was completely different from the elegant, silver-tongued bard known to everyone else. Geralt wondered how he had never noticed, never truly seen the bard for what he really was. Because the signs were there, the entire time. 

Jaskier’s morning voice was rough, as if he had to learn how to use it with every new day. Melodies always came to him before words, he’d hum three or more tunes before he downed enough gulps from his waterskin to clear his throat enough for human-passing talk. He liked to sleep in, his cute nose twitching as it always searched for any hint of salt on the air, yearning for the sea. 

Perhaps, if Geralt treaded lightly, he could lay himself down behind the bard and let him wake with the witcher’s arm around him, make him believe that yesterday was just a bad dream. That… a lot of what happened recently was just a bad dream. 

Well, maybe that was a bit too wishful thinking. But at the very least, the faster Geralt caught up with them, the sooner he could get over Jaskier yelling back at him, and that inexplicable knot in his stomach would go away. 

The knot only grew tighter as he approached the camp and realised that he could no longer detect the scent of chamomile salt under the stench of dwarves and the acrid smoke of freshly doused out fire. In fact, he couldn’t smell any salt at all. 

One of the dwarves was taking a piss over the last still glowing embers in the blackened fire pit when Geralt stepped out into the clearing. The others were kneeling on the ground, folding up their bedrolls. The soft grass in the clearing was flattened and yellowed in the places where they slept. A quick glance confirmed Geralt’s worry. There was no trace of a human-sized bedroll imprint anywhere on the grass. 

“What did you do to the bard,” Geralt growled in lieu of greeting. 

Their leader, Yerpen, looked up in surprise and then spat on the ground. 

“What I shall do to him once I get my hands on him again! Fucking sneaky thief - first won’t shut up all the way down-”

-good, that sounded like Jaskier was in his usual spirits yesterday-

“-then  _ insists _ on keeping the first watch-”

-fuck, maybe he did knock his head against a rock on the way down somewhere-

“-and then Yannick wakes up for his watch to find out the bard’s fucked off into the night! So we think, fine, if he can’t deal with a little smell let the wolves eat him for all we care, but then I find out he took the entire pouch of salt out of our supplies!”

Shit. So Jaskier was planning on a long journey. 

“Seriously, what the fuck?” Yerpen raged. “Is he actually crazy? I’d understand gold, but salt? That’s fucking annoying. Where do we find a salt merchant in these parts?”

Yes, Geralt was rather familiar with that particular pain of never sparing any thoughts about salt until it mysteriously disappeared and you had to force unseasoned meat down your throat. 

He ignored the rest of the dwarf’s outrage and followed the path back to the last village they set out from. Jaskier’s scent trail was going cold but at least he had enough common sense to keep close to the road. Except that Jaskier’s sensibility was usually the lower the angrier he was, and the longer Geralt had the time to think back on his words and actions of late, the more he understood that Jaskier was  _ pissed _ . 

*

Jaskier should have had no chance of making it far before Geralt would catch up with him. The bard’s speed was no match against a witcher’s even on a good day, and he must have been exhausted, having walked through the night. He must have already been exhausted back up on the mountain, too long since he’d been able to enjoy a proper bath, too long since he’d last soaked his skin in saltwater. That’s why he didn’t fight back, Geralt told himself. 

But that also made Geralt’s outburst all the more mid-judged and mis-timed, in retrospect. 

What was done was done. He would make it up to him. He might have sucked at how  _ not  _ to hurt Jaskier, but he definitely knew how to care for his bard. A nice scented bath would be a good start. 

Except as he walked past the first farm at the outskirts of the cropland in the late afternoon, suddenly there were people running out, begging him to rid them free of a noonwraith that plagued their fields. He had to wait for the next day’s high noon and by the time he laid the poor Midday bride to her final rest, any trace of Jaskier’s scent was scattered to the four winds. 

*

Two months have passed of him going from contract to contract, each taking him closer to the coast. He hoped that’s where Jaskier went. 

The songs spoke about the coast, at least. All of a sudden, Geralt heard them everywhere. There was a new one, called Sailor’s Love, told a story of a man who leaves his wife of many years for a new, enchanting sea creature. Geralt was the only one who knew the truth behind it. It hurt to listen, and he developed a habit of giving a generous coin to travelling bards to play literally anything else. 

_ Years on the road  _

_ growing old _

_ always a step behind _

_ She has the fire  _

_ you desire  _

_ through a wish fates entwined _

_ Swept by her tide _

_ I was cast to the side _

_ Left alone on the shore  _

_ Ours is a tale _

_ Of a ship that has sailed  _

_ Didn't I deserve more?  _

He wanted to find Jaskier and give that song a new ending. 

But it took two months before he first caught word about the bard himself from a couple of a woodworkers repairing a water mill at the edge of the woods, the village snuggled in the valley below. 

“Yeah, that bard of yours? The one that sings Toss a Coin? Sang at the Spade last night.”

“Did he mention where he’s heading next?”

The younger one grinned. “Oh, he’ll be staying a few nights for sure. The innkeeper just  _ loves _ him.” 

Geralt suppressed a hint of annoyance - of course the most likely place to find Jaskier was in someone else’s bed. “I hope she’s not married,” he grumbled. 

The older one snorted. “Old Hilda? Don’t worry, master witcher. The only thing that puts a spark in our Hilda’s eye is the sound of coin on the till. And your bard is like a golden egg laying goose to her. The inn’s packed and everyone ordering twice as much as they would without him there.”

“He had all the girls crying,” the apprentice said with a hint of begrudging envy. 

“Girls,” his master scoffed. “They don’t know anything better.”

“Sure, and the smoke just happened to get into your eyes last night,” the younger man laughed and earned himself a cuff upside the head. 

Geralt wasn’t listening anymore. Jaskier was doing well, doing what he loved, and most importantly, doing so finally less than an hour of walk away. Soon, Geralt would be resting in a cosy inn, listening to Jaskier’s newest songs, and for the first time in two months, the food wouldn’t be sitting wrong in his stomach. 

*

He immediately knew he was dealing with the formidable Hilda, the innkeeper, when a woman almost as tall as him and built like a cart-horse blocked the doorway into the inn just as he was about to enter. 

“No business here for you, witcher,” she said in a tone that broke no argument. 

Geralt didn’t want to have any, so he just shouldered past her. 

“My business is with the bard,” he said with as much peace as he could muster. There was a handful of patrons in the common room this early in the afternoon, and no Jaskier. 

“Yeah, I figured,” the innkeeper followed him, radiating disapproval. Her gaze lingered on the wolf’s head medallion on Geralt’s chest and she scrunched her nose. 

“At least bring up the bath he ordered,” she called after him just as he passed a large bucket of steaming water at the foot of the stairs, a thin stable hand boy just hauling in another, struggling under the weight. “Manners like some prince, if his voice wasn’t just the sweetest thing, I’d kick him out myself...” she kept grumbling as she retreated back behind the bar. “A bath after lunch, who does that?”

Jaskier always did that, when he was too tired to take one after a late night of performance, slept hours into the day and then didn’t want to miss out on the lunch crowd’s coin. Geralt grabbed both buckets with ease, nodding as the stable hand gratefully scurried away, and climbed up the stairs. He could pick out Jaskier’s room from the row of doors by the scent alone, salt, dried herbs and wood polish… and the unmistakable hint of panic.


	6. Chapter 6

Jaskier didn’t look up when Geralt stepped into the room and put the buckets down next to the small tub. His nostrils did flare up as the alluring steam hit him but his jaw only clenched in determination as he worked on fastenings his shoes. His lute stood by a chair, strings already loosened for travel. The opened lute case lay on the bed, some coin stuck to the inside of it. He must have been playing just before Geralt arrived, and bowed out early. 

Probably as soon as he heard the shouting of children running into the village,  _ a witcher, a witcher is coming. _

“What are you doing?”

Jaskier’s fingers didn’t fumble. If he was panicking, it was a very well-practiced panic. 

“I thought the witcher mutations sharpened your eyesight, not obliterated it.”

Fine, Geralt called this one on himself. 

“I brought you a bath.”

“My eyes are working just fine, too.”

This was getting difficult. Geralt had all this scenario planned out, and it never involved Jaskier saying  _ no _ to a bath. 

“You could make a song about the dragon hunt. I could give you the rest of the story.”

Geralt knew it was a feeble offer even before Jaskier scoffed at it. 

“You wouldn’t know a song material if it hit you in the face and this wasn’t it. Do you know what sells a song to a crowd? Tragic death or victorious love. Well, nobody of importance died that day, and it was definitely not a love story.”

Geralt could have sworn that back on that mountain, Jaskier was as close to crying as he’d ever been, his voice shaking, breaking on his parting word,  _ see you around _ . But now his voice was perfectly level and unaffected. It was making Geralt’s hackles rise. It was wrong. Jaskier was supposed to be the emotional one. 

It was also forcing Geralt to say what he really meant, and that felt like pulling teeth. 

“I didn’t want you to leave.”

Jaskier looked at him for a moment, just looked. No dramatically rising eyebrows, no outraged huffs, nothing that Geralt had come to expect from him. And then he shook his head minutely, like someone whose suspicions had just been confirmed... and went back to packing his things. 

So that meant that he knew. He knew that deep down, Geralt didn’t mean it. And he chose to leave all the same. 

“Jaskier. Talk to me.”

Jaskier threw back his head and laughed, and Geralt winced. The sound of the bard’s laughter should never sound so cold and mocking. Fine, Geralt probably shouldn’t have spent years of their travels telling him to shut up at every opportunity. 

“You yelled at me to fuck off loud enough to bring down an avalanche. What did you expect I’d do?” Jaskier said when he laughed his fill. 

Geralt gritted his teeth. He didn’t lose his temper that bad… did he? 

“What you usually do. Stay and not give a fuck about what I said.” 

It was true. Jaskier has heard worse from Geralt over the years. Threats. Insults. Nothing has ever deterred Jaskier from seeking Geralt out time and time again and following him around as long as it suited the bard. He wasn’t supposed to just… break and leave. He was supposed to take the blaming in stride and hurl it back tenfold. 

Except before, Geralt thought he was trying to drive away just an ordinary human. Before, he hadn’t known how high Jaskier’s stakes were, what level of risk he was going through every day, what had he given up to be with him. And when he finally knew… he hurt him all the more. 

“Ah,” Jaskier drawled, securing the fastenings around his lute case. Neatly, methodically. “Circumstances do change, my dear witcher.”

He continued folding and collecting his things to stuff them into his travel bag, his back turned to Geralt and his voice monotonous, without any real heat. As if he was reciting prepared words, a litany so well rehearsed his heart was no longer in it. The leaden weight in Geralt’s stomach was growing heavier and he hated it. 

“Years, Geralt. I’ve spent years believing that you, of all people, were worth my salt. I  _ shared _ with you, I’ve let you use my salt for your potions, what’s left of my voice I gave to you as well, and you-”

“You should have told me.” Geralt forced his fists to unclench. 

“And about your songs, you and I both know that you were making your name just as much as mine,” he pointed out, fed up with the cold lecture.  _ I could be your barker,  _ Jaskier had said, seemingly so selfless, all those years ago on the dusty road outside of Posada. A humble troubadour. An understatement of the century, and Geralt could tell, he’d lived through a whole hundred of years. He knew, just as Jaskier hoped for, that the bard’s name would be remembered long after people would forget who he was singing about. He could have had a human’s body now, but deep down he was still a siren who wanted his songs to be heard. 

“And you’ve made it. You’re famous now. They’re all singing praises of the Witcher’s Bard.”

It was a deliberate taunt - and a rather low bait - and Geralt hated using words to cut instead of his blades, but he couldn’t very well take a sword to the walls Jaskier built around himself. So words it were. And it seemed they finally worked, if the way Jaskier straightened and turned to him, lips pressed into a thin line, was any indication. 

“Come here,” Jaskier said - echoing Geralt’s own words from the very memory Geralt was recalling earlier, when the first time he ever touched the bard was to give him a black and blue reason to reconsider his attachment.

He even mirrored that gesture of Geralt’s hand, deceptively welcoming, beckoning him to himself. And just like Jaskier back then, Geralt stepped closer. Not blindly - if Jaskier wanted to return the punch, Geralt would let him. Anything to break the ice. It wasn’t like his human fist could deal any damage to a witcher... 

This close, he was always aware of the fact that despite their difference in build, they were nearly of the same height. If he leaned just a little bit forward, they would be-

Geralt gasped and curled on himself in genuine pain as Jaskier’s knee shot up, his aim accurate and merciless. Back then in Posada, Geralt had punched Jaskier in the stomach - hard enough to send him sprawled into the dirt but not enough to cause any internal damage. But it seemed that besides the scant inch on his height, another thing Jaskier lacked was any reservations about fighting dirty. 

Right. Geralt probably deserved that. He should have expected it. 

What he didn’t expect, and what he definitely didn’t deserve, were Jaskier’s hands immediately fluttering over his shoulders in an anxious attempt at support, tugging him upwards until he lifted his head enough to look into the bard’s face, warm and open and concerned. For that sight, the pain in his balls was worth it. 

“Shit, Geralt, did it hurt?”

Geralt glared at him - despite the leaden ball in his stomach shattering with relief, his facial muscles still ran on reflexes. “You really don’t know?”

Jaskier met the glare with an eye-roll, and that too was a reflex of many years that Geralt was pleased to find Jaskier hadn’t unlearned. 

“It is true I got my package with the legs but I’ve been playing the game long enough to know what feels good and what doesn’t,” he said, still with more glee than compassion. “Feels rather satisfying not to be on the receiving end, for a change.”

“Glad it helped,” Geralt huffed and straightened. Damn, Jaskier’s knees were bony, but Geralt would live to fuck another day, he was sure. 

“Oh no, we’re still having a hell of a conversation,” Jaskier stepped around him, hands still on his shoulders, to put himself between Geralt and the door. “And to start it off, I’m not  _ yours _ anything, you short-tempered, ungrateful witcher, least of all-”

“You’re much more than my friend,” Geralt interrupted him. 

The rest of Jaskier’s tirade froze on his tongue, momentarily stunned into silence, and Geralt rushed the rest of his words out while the blessing lasted. 

“You always were. What I said… was stupid. My life  _ is _ shit, and I keep shoveling it on myself. You’re just the one person who’s been there for all of it. Nobody else ever had the guts.”

Nobody else that would stand by Geralt not because he gambled with Destiny for them, or used a djinn’s wish to bind them - nobody who would choose him for himself, on their own volition. But there was more. Geralt had two months to prepare his words, and he wasn’t going to let them go to waste. 

“I wasn’t scared that you would love me and take my heart to get back to the sea one day. I think I was scared to admit that I would love you so much I would let you.”

Jaskier stared at him, mouth agape. “Oh gods. You really have no fucking idea how love works, do you?”

Geralt just raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Fair enough,” Jaskier admitted. “So for the start, forget about djinns, and forget about sacrifices and fairy tale bullshit. Also, this is so not fair. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear that? I should still be mad at you, dammit!” 

Geralt chuckled. “Did I steal your thunder?”

“I’m not entirely sure you didn’t steal  _ my _ witcher’s body,” Jaskier grumbled. “Confession and self-awareness, what other depths have you been hiding all those years? Yes, you did in fact steal the thunder out of it, I had it all planned out, I was going to be righteously angry and you were going to beg, except  _ that _ would have definitely looked as if someone stole your body so maybe it’s better like this,” and he gave a long sigh. Geralt wondered how the hell had he any breath left for that. 

“Beg?” he asked, shaking his head in amusement. His mouth was doing something unusual. It couldn’t keep from smiling. 

“Yes, beg,” Jaskier said, folding his arms across his chest. The pout on his lips looked as if it was fighting a losing battle, too. “That’s what saying ‘please’ is, Geralt. And people are supposed to say please when they want something.”

Jaskier’s eyes were more black than blue from this close, his fingers gripping tightly the brocaded fabric of his opened doublet, the thrumming of his heart so loud to witcher senses to almost drown out the noise of the tavern downstairs. His voice caught a little on the word ‘want’ and his gaze flitted to Geralt’s mouth for a second, but he didn’t make any move, proud as ever. Geralt liked that. 

“Was I going to get on my knees?” he let his voice drop even lower than his usual gravel, watching the fine hair on Jaskier’s forearms rise at the sound, and stepped closer - and winced, hissing out at the stab of pain from his groin. Oh yes. Not even witchers could walk away from being kneed in the dick as if nothing happened. 

Jaskier’s face went from hopeful arousal over surprise, concern, disappointment and exasperation in a span of two seconds, until it settled on fond resignation. “I guess I did this to myself,” he muttered. 

“You did that to me,” Geralt corrected him, a little unnecessarily. 

“You’ll heal,” Jaskier dismissed him with a breezy laugh. “But by that time I shall die of a truly horrific case of yearning, heartache and blue-”

“I could heal faster,” Geralt drawled, pulling Jaskier closer to him and unwrapping his arms to put them around his own waist. “If you kissed it better.”

Jaskier gasped, scandalized. “That’s  _ your  _ apology, witcher!” But he wasn’t pulling away, quite the opposite - in Geralt’s arms, he kind of sagged, as if the last of the hurt, panic, and pride ran out of him, and he all but wrapped himself around the witcher and held on, with the same desperate affirmation Geralt held him.

At last, Geralt could feel him smile against his neck, and he brought his face up to press their foreheads together. Jaskier’s cheek was smooth under his palm, a little wet just under the pad of his thumb, and it squeezed at his heart that Jaskier, who had to count every grain of his salt, would let himself cry for him. 

“I’ll apologise,” he whispered into the warm and humid air between them, “after you’ve taken that bath.”

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I post geraskier art and fic ideas on [Tumblr](https://squire-reblogs.tumblr.com/) and you can hit me up on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/SquiresBella), too.


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